Fredrick C. Harris

Biography Harris received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He taught at the University of Rochester from 1994 until joining the Columbia University faculty in 2007. Harris argued that Barack Obama became the first African American President by denying that he was the candidate of African Americans, thereby downplaying many of the social justice issues that are central to black political movements.

Harris is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and served as Vice President of the American Political Science Association. He was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation between 1998 and 1999.

Works

The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics (2012)